Distressing news

           Have you had any “distressing news” lately?? Hardly a week ever goes by that we don’t get distressing news from one direction or another—personal, family, friends, church, national, international. Jesus warned of this, “In the world you shall have tribulation. . . .” I keep lingering around Psalm 18 and thinking about 18:6 “In my distress I called upon the Lord; to my God I cried for help. . . .”

           Scripture knows a lot about distress. Here are a few examples:

Jacob told his family, “Let us arise and go up to Bethel, [“house of God”] so that I may make there an altar to the God who answers me in the day of my distress and has been with me wherever I have gone.” Genesis 35:3 ESV

           Four times in Psalm 107 They “cried unto the Lord in their troubles” and God delivered them “out of their distresses.”

          The apostles spoke of a whole list of “distresses”! “afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger. . . .” 2 Cor. 6

How then should we live and what should be our attitude??

             ^“But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us. We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; Persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed; Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body. For we which live are alway delivered unto death for Jesus' sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh.” 2 Cor. 4:7-11

         Our attitudes and actions speak for themselves: “by purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, the Holy Spirit, genuine love; by truthful speech, and the power of God; with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left . . .as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, yet possessing everything.”

         “What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? . . . Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? . . . No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. . . .” Romans 8:31-39 ESV

Whoops! we didn’t finish that verse we started with: “In my distress I called upon the Lord; to my God I cried for help. From his temple he heard my voice, and my cry to him reached his ears.” Psalm 18:6

Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress. 107:13
Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress. 107:19 Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress. 107:28